Difference between revisions of "Megamania"

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(Good)
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===Good===
 
===Good===
 
* Despite the Atari 2600's memory restrictions, Cartwright packed a lot of variation into this game's enemies. They follow different movement patterns, look different, and each have several variations.
 
* Despite the Atari 2600's memory restrictions, Cartwright packed a lot of variation into this game's enemies. They follow different movement patterns, look different, and each have several variations.
* Even though the ships design repeats, the palette shifts, and the enemy ships adopt new movement patterns in subsequent waves.
+
* Even though the ship designs repeat, the palette shifts and the enemy ships adopt new movement patterns in subsequent waves giving the game more variety.
 
* Being able to control the ship's gun in different ways was a nice addition.
 
* Being able to control the ship's gun in different ways was a nice addition.
 
* The game has really nice sound for a 2600 game.
 
* The game has really nice sound for a 2600 game.

Revision as of 23:45, 14 September 2017

2600 box art.

Megamania is a classic single-screen shooter programmed by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision in 1982 on the Atari 2600, and then later on the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers. This is one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, and a favorite of the single-screen space shooter genre.

I first played the game as one of the many games in a used collection of Atari game my parents bought us kids at a garage sale. I once programmed by own version of Megamania in QuickBASIC.

Status

I own Megamania for the Atari 2600. My highest score is 111,920, well beyond the score of 45,000 needed to earn the Activision Megamaniacs patch, but a far cry from when the game stops counting at 999,999.

Review

  • Overall: 5/10
  • Best Version: Atari 2600?

Good

  • Despite the Atari 2600's memory restrictions, Cartwright packed a lot of variation into this game's enemies. They follow different movement patterns, look different, and each have several variations.
  • Even though the ship designs repeat, the palette shifts and the enemy ships adopt new movement patterns in subsequent waves giving the game more variety.
  • Being able to control the ship's gun in different ways was a nice addition.
  • The game has really nice sound for a 2600 game.

Bad

  • Due to the extreme limits of the Atari 2600, the game is unfortunately too repetitive.

Ugly

  • Nothing.

Box Art

Documentation

Links